


Before the Fire is Lit

by Merovignian



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, How the hell do you write Agnes Montague's thought process? I don't know but I'm trying, Just another Tuesday afternoon in the life of our favourite pain messiah, Self-Doubt, referenced horrible childhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-18 22:43:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22001059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merovignian/pseuds/Merovignian
Summary: "A large black coffee with room for milk, please."That's what she says every time, every Tuesday, every time the clocktower strikes three over on the City Hall on the other side of town. It's a normal thing, a human thing, and absolutely not something befitting the architect of a Scoured Earth - which of course is why she does it.
Relationships: Jack Barnabas/Agnes Montague, not a focus but it exists
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	Before the Fire is Lit

"A large black coffee with room for milk, please."

That's what she says every time, every Tuesday, every time the clocktower strikes three over on the City Hall on the other side of town. It's a normal thing, a human thing, and absolutely not something befitting the architect of a Scoured Earth - which of course is why she does it. It's a novelty.

So Agnes finds it somewhat vexing when she doesn't get to say it.

"Your usual, right?" The girl behind the counter asks, before Agnes even gets to open her mouth. Surprise takes the wind out of her sails, and she pauses for a second as her mind adjusts.

"A large black coffee with room for milk, please." She says it anyway, but the moment is gone. The girl is gone, too, off to make it. Maybe that's for the best. Because now Agnes is angry.

She's worked hard over the long and lonely decades, learning to keep her temper in check. She was an awful child - all the Church tell her so, all who are old enough to remember those days. There aren't many left alive, and that's her fault. But she's done her best to keep quiet and do as she's told, to calm the fury that so often courses through her. And to curb what comes with it. For on the counter of the coffee shop where Agnes Montague waits for her drink, her fingertips are leaving scorch marks.

Not that it would be the worst thing in the world to burn this place to the ground. There's not many people in here at this time of day, but she assumes they would be missed. Livelihoods would be ruined. And that girl is young, has her whole life ahead of her, is unlikely to stick around long. Agnes has seen many like her come and go, in her time coming here and not drinking coffee. Yes. The Desolation would be pleased if she were to annihilate this place.

She doesn't, though. She isn't sure why. Eventually she convinces herself that it would be a small thing, a crass thing, a meagre and artless offering to obliterate a shop because she got annoyed at a barista. Besides, the girl was probably just trying to be nice. Agnes is a regular here, after all.

Agnes doesn't destroy much, at least not on purpose. If the others ask her nicely, if something needs doing, certainly. But she has never sought out offerings of despair and sadism to give to her god. She is given the offerings. And when she makes her own, it is not by choice. Recollections flicker through her head as they so often do, of dogs to be petted and strangers brushed against by accident in the street, and she shivers slightly. Sometimes, when she lies on her bed in her empty flat and does not sleep, she wonders if _she_ is the offering.

She tells herself that she is destined for greater things, that it is not for her to muddy her hands on paltry individual sacrifices. Her feet do not touch the earth of this base world; it is her fate to end it, to usher in a new era of glorious destruction. She tells herself that this is why she does not care, why she does not seek to ruin lives like Jude and Arthur and Eugene and Diego and all the rest.

But somehow this explanation never quite manages to satisfy.

Then the coffee is ready, and Agnes thanks the girl behind the counter, because it's best to be polite. She walks to her usual table, to stare out of the window into a gloomy day in Sheffield, as she always does at three o'clock on a Tuesday, as she has done for years. The fact that her act of independence and choice is as predictable and robotic as a wind-up clock has never consciously occurred to her, and she would not appreciate the irony if someone were to mention it. But the girl's comment pricks her, in some way.

Jack is clearing tables near her usual seat. From his expression when she walked in, she gets the impression that he'd wanted to be the one to serve her. He usually is, which she's since realised is deliberate on his part. He smiles at her and waves, and she finds herself returning the gesture. It seems like the proper thing to do, under the circumstances. There's another novelty; she's never gone walking out with someone before. His smile widens and his cheeks redden at her action, not with blistering heat and pain but just a blush at the small display of familiarity. It's a strange feeling, making someone happy. Won't last. Can't last. 

She hopes he'll be dead by the time she ushers in the Scoured Earth. It's nice to pass for human sometimes, and she knows that is how he sees her, is the lens through which he desires her. She wouldn't want to ruin the image that seems to have built up in his head. Or maybe it's just that she doesn't want him to suffer?

But that's blasphemy, so it can't be true.

She is pure of purpose, she must be, for what else is there? To remake the world is her destiny.

But before the end, she hopes there'll be time for a few more cups of coffee.


End file.
